1983 Cronulla coach
Terry Fearnley gave Ettingshausen his first grade début for the Sharks in round 5 of the
1983 season against the
Newtown Jets at . His début was somewhat of an uneventful affair, although he did cross for a try in the second half.
1985–91 In the
1985 season, he scored a total of nine tries playing mostly from fullback or in the s in his third season and finally cemented his spot in the Sharks squad. Ettingshausen also made an appearance in the 1988 Australian television movie
The First Kangaroos, which depicted the
1908–09 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain. Also having a small role in the movie was his NSW teammate and captain
Wayne Pearce. With his 3rd try against
Manly-Warringah in Round 5 (his 6th of the season), Ettingshausen brought up his 100th try for the Cronulla club. He would finish the season with 112 tries for Cronulla. At the end of the 1994 season, he was selected for his second
Kangaroo tour. In almost a carbon copy of his 1990 Tour, Ettingshausen was the team's top try scorer with 15 from 11 games played which included all three tests playing on the wing against Great Britain and the single test against France. Ettingshausen remains the only player to be the leading try scorer on consecutive
Kangaroo tours. Ettingshausen captained Cronulla-Sutherland to the
1997 Super League Grand Final, but they lost 26-8 to the
Brisbane Broncos in front of 58,912 fans at the
ANZ Stadium in
Brisbane (the Broncos home ground) in what was the first night Grand Final played in Australia and the first not to be played in Sydney. He then toured with the
Australian SL team to Great Britain and France at the end of 1997, playing all four tests (
three against Great Britain, and one against France) in the centres. Other than the 1992 Ashes series, this was the only time ET failed to score a try for Australia in a full test series. In the
1999 NRL season, Ettingshausen played 26 games for Cronulla as the club won the minor premiership after enjoying one of their best ever seasons. Ettingshausen played in the club's preliminary final defeat against St George at
Stadium Australia. Ettingshausen played on for Cronulla in the
2000 NRL season which would be his last. His final game as a player came in round 23 2000 against the
Auckland Warriors which Cronulla won 22-12 at
Shark Park. He ended up playing a total of 328 first grade games, all for Cronulla which at the time became the record for the most games for a single club, and 6th highest overall. His record was broken when
Darren Lockyer played his 329th game for the Brisbane Broncos in Round 25 of the
2009 NRL season. As of the
2013 NRL season, ET sits 6th on the NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL all-time games list behind Lockyer (355),
Terry Lamb (349),
Steve Menzies (349),
Brad Fittler (336) and
Cliff Lyons (332).
Controversy During the
1991 NSWRL season Ettingshausen filed a defamation lawsuit against the Australian
HQ magazine and photographer Brett Cochrane. Cochrane had taken a photo of Ettingshausen while he was in the shower on the 1990
Kangaroo tour of Great Britain. The magazine ran the shot in 1991 without his permission. Ettingshausen successfully sued the magazine for originally $350,000 which was later reduced to $100,000 after appeal. ==Representative career==